Release: Guidance for Pre- and Post-Construction Monitoring to Detect Changes in Marine Bird Distributions and Habitat Use Related to Offshore Wind Energy

An expert committee of the E-TWG has released guidance for conducting pre- and post-construction monitoring to detect changes in marine bird distributions and habitat use related to offshore wind development. The committee also developed guidance for the use of existing avian survey data for site characterization purposes. These recommendations are intended to support environmental research in the U.S. Atlantic but have broad applicability to research efforts in all regions of offshore wind development. The guidance documents are available here.

Release: Whale Communications Committee Publishes Frequently Asked Questions

The Whale Communications Specialist Committee, a specialist committee of the E-TWG, has released the first round of an FAQ document to aid in the dissemination of current, accurate, and readily understandable information around whale mortality events and the level of potential risk to whales from offshore wind energy development activities. Committee members represent a variety of sectors including offshore wind developers, government agencies, and environmental nonprofit organizations.

This FAQ document is intended to primarily be used as a resource for stakeholders who are in direct communication with the general public and who regularly receive questions from the public on these topics. The FAQ development process includes multiple rounds of expert review from experts external to the committee and the E-TWG. New sections of the FAQ document are being publicly released as they are finalized. View Document.

Update to Mitigation Practices Database Tool

NYSERDA has moved the Mitigation Practices Database (MPD) Tool for Offshore Wind (previously the Mitigation and Monitoring or MMP Tool) to a new hosting platform and has created a new web application to access the database. The Tool is publicly available for use by environmental and fisheries stakeholders. The Tool houses a searchable database of potential mitigation practices that may be relevant to avoiding, minimizing, offsetting and restoring potential effects of offshore wind energy development on wildlife, the environment, and fisheries. View Tool.